The virtualization of resources in a data center that provides a cloud service has gone beyond the virtualization of servers, storage and other resources to include the virtualization of network resources (such as physical switch resources). The treatment of a plurality of physical switches as one virtual switch or the treatment of one physical switch as a plurality of virtual switches may be used during the virtualization of network resources.
Conventionally, the disposition of software (e.g., software for processing a link layer discovery protocol (LLDP)) for managing virtual switches in a system that uses such virtual switch techniques has not been properly considered so far.
For example, the problem of rising system construction costs arises when disposing software for managing virtual switches in devices since the devices for executing such software are desirably high performance devices. Further, the problem of increased network traffic also arises due to an increase in the transfer of control frames for configuring the virtual switches.
Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2004-506343 discusses a switch that relays packets to a device provided separately from the switch and causes the device to execute a portion of the processing. However, applying the virtual switches described above is not considered as a constituent element in the system of the aforementioned document.